In the wake of sexual assaults in the Global South, American conservatives and liberals alike naively ask the question of what is it about the “cultures” of countries such as Pakistan, India and Afghanistan that generates such misogyny.

The U.S. all but shut down its diplomatic office in Lahore, Pakistan, ordering nonessential staff to move to the capital Islamabad while citing a specific threat amid soaring terrorist violence in the country.

Lucky for him. Raymond Davis, the CIA contractor who was nabbed in January after shooting and killing two men in Pakistan (the news of which wasn’t released until February), has been freed from detainment after the payment of “blood money” to the victims’ families.

Last month’s arrest in Pakistan of one Raymond Davis, an American working security for other U.S. operatives in Lahore—and an American with clear employment ties to the CIA and previously to Blackwater Worldwide—has made for additional diplomatic strain between the two nations.

If you want to know how brutally Pakistan treats its people, you should meet Amina Janjua. An intelligent painter and interior designer, she sits on the vast sofa of her living room in Rawalpindi—a room that somehow accentuates her loneliness—scarf wound tightly round her head, serving tea and biscuits like the middle-class woman she is.

Two bomb blasts ripped through a busy market in Lahore, Pakistan, on Monday evening, killing at least 36 people and injuring about 100. The bombs were reportedly set off via remote control, and the explosions came on the heels of a suicide bombing in Peshawar that killed at least 10 earlier in the day.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced the unenviable task of trying to change U.S.-Pakistani relations for the better during her three-day diplomacy spree in the South Asian nation. However, it was unclear as her visit drew to a close whether she’d made any headway, as she herself acknowledged on Friday.

During an interview with journalists in Lahore, Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed her puzzlement over why certain al-Qaida leaders believed to be harbored within the country’s borders haven’t been caught. She did not address the issue of missile attacks from U.S. drones that had earlier fueled student protest.

The public lashing of a 17-year-old girl named Chand in Pakistan’s Swat Valley became the catalyst for countrywide protests on Saturday after a video of the flogging made its way around the Internet. A spokesman for the local Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed the video was fake and that the actual incident happened outside of Swat but defended the punishment as just.

Here are some words to the wise for the U.S. government from a unique Pakistani media figure: introducing (for some of us, at least) Begum Nawazish Ali, nee Ali Saleem, a drag queen who interviews politicians and celebrities in character—and colorful finery—as “Begum Sahiba” on Pakistan’s AAJ Television.